Bad Moon Rising
by MotatoPotato
Summary: SJ. Vignette 12. ANGST ALERT Jack returns from a diplomatic disaster offworld worse for wear.


**Title: **Bad Moon Rising

**Author: **MotatoPotato

**Spoilers: **Abyss, Threads, Paradise Lost, SGA: The Return pt. 2, 8-10

**Season: ** 10

**Warnings: **SJ Ship. Companion to '_Surrender'. _Some language, violence, angst. **_This piece is a different tone than the rest!_ **It's darker than the others.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. Sadly. I only twist what is there.

**Notes: **This is twelfth in a series of same universe vignettes.

**Please let me know what you think….It's how I improve!! Enjoy.**

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Sam finally came dashing into the briefing room as fast as she could without breaking decorum. She looked around quickly, finally locking onto General Landry's gaze. He sighed. "Infirmary;" was all he said before she disappeared back through the door.

It felt like it had taken her hours to get back to base.

She felt the air being squeezed from her chest. Oh god, she'd been so frantic, sick with dread and fear for what seemed like forever. Forced to hide behind a calm, collected exterior.

Sam's heart was pounding frantically, but still schooled her features carefully. He was home. Her funny, wonderful, infuriating husband was home.

She saw Daniel and Teal'c in the hall, noting both of them looked fairly subdued. She flew (again much slower than her heart was telling her to, just as her training and duty demanded) past them without stopping and around the corner into the doorway of the infirmary.

She stopped short, only her years of military conditioning allowing her to freeze the cry of shock before it reached her lips.

He sat holding himself rigidly straight, an empty look in his unseeing eyes. He was covered head to toe with bruises and bandages already soaking through from the deep slashing cuts. Sam thought he looked too pale. He had lean, wiry muscles that had been far healthier and bulkier when he'd left. It made her heart twist.

He'd also dropped a significant amount of weight. His little desk gut was gone.

Her husband was gone too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_He kissed her sloppily awake. "Wake up, you."_

_She moaned, burrowing into her pillow. "Nooo."_

_Sam heard a rich, caressing chuckle next to her ear. "C'mon, Carter...I'll make you breaaaakfast..."_

_"Pop Tarts don't count as breakfast, Sir,"_

_His hands started sliding up and down her bare shoulder. "Whatever you're hungry for, Carter."_

_ She shivered deliciously. _

_"Okay that's it! We're gonna stay here. Together. Screw diplomacy and screw the Ancient observatory. I want my husband to myself for awhile and I'm definitely not sharing him with some lame potential allies!" She made quotation marks with her fingers as she emphasized the word 'allies'._

_He tugged her ear playfully with his teeth. "Last time I checked your husband was in bed with you."_

_Sam peeked out at him, eyes twinkling. "Yeah, yeah. It's just today I feel like I'm a week or two away from you..."_

_He grinned affectionately and brushed a stray bit of hair from her eyes. "You know as well as I do it's just what we have to do, Carter." Then he sobered a little and rested his forehead in her hair. "Much as I wish we didn't have to sometimes." _

_Sam felt his hands rub roughly over her neck and face, caressing her cheeks with the pads of his calloused thumbs. "Jack..."_

_"I know..."_

_"Do you ever..."_

_"Yeah."_

_"How do you..."_

_"I pick up the phone."_

_"But..."_

_"A picture."_

_"Jack..."_

_"Sam..." His nose bumped against her hair._

_"I just..." She reached to trace a long since faded scar on his chest._

_"Have I told you lately..." His voice was warm and soothing as his lips tickled her temple._

_"Have I told you?" _

_They hit the snooze button and curled together, savoring the next nine minutes of heaven, before reality and honor won the battle._

_Hours later she watched, her heart clenching painfully, as he strolled cockily through the gate with olive cap in place. He waved and sent 'the' smile her way. She couldn't help but respond in kind even though, inexplicably, she felt as if her heart were breaking._

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She went to him and gently touched his shoulder. He barely acknowledged her, pulling away from her hand. "Carter." The quiet word startled her.

She felt like crying. Or screaming. Or throwing her arms around him and never letting go. She did none of them. Sam really had thought this might be the time. The time he didn't come home. The time her world shattered into a multitude of unfixable shards.

Jack and SG-13 had been on his first diplomatic mission offworld since his capture by the Atlantis Replicators. Usually he sent others to negotiate. This planet, however, had an Ancient observatory complete with extensive library. Perhaps of great use in the fight against the Ori. They said they would only deal with 'The Man'. So, off Jack went.

From what Sam understood things were going very well on the planet, a trade agreement nearly reached. That is until a terrorist group killed the current political leaders establishing an iron fisted dictatorship. Of course with a policy against any and all offworlders.

Jack and SG-13 had had to go underground immediately to get out alive as the negotiations dissolved.

From the mini debriefing Daniel had given her over the phone, as she tore up the mountain, she also knew that they were captured after a long month of evasion. That the four SG-13 members were tortured, and then killed before Jack found a way to escape.

He had been gone two and a half agonizing months.

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_Sam went pale listening to Jack's hurried yet confident and calm voice over the radio. "We're being hunted. Hank you can't send anyone else in. Too hot. They'll kill anyone found. We'll find our own way. Everyone's in one piece." He paused. "That's an order, Hank." Then there was a hurried volley of voices and what sounded like weaponsfire. "O'Neill out," He rasped before the radio went silent._

"_We have to go in." Sam said slowly, her eyes only slightly betraying her crushing worry. She knew Jack was the best. It didn't quell the fear that he might have been behind a desk for too long, away from field duty. She was instantly ashamed and furious with herself for even thinking it. He was the most capable leader she'd ever encountered._

_It was more that she didn't want to lose him than doubting his rather unique abilities as a field commander. In truth she admired the cool head he could always seem to keep in the hottest situations. It had saved all their lives more times than she could count. Combined with his ability to inspire fierce loyalty and good morale among his men he was a force to be reckoned with._

_Hank Landry looked at Sam with an unreadable expression. "You know I can't allow that." _

_He'd had a faint bad feeling when Jack had failed to check in. It was compounded by the unusual anxiety Col. Carter had subtly and unintentionally conveyed since Jack had left. So he contacted him immediately without the standard wait time when the scheduled check in was missed._

_Daniel took a step closer to the ultra-controlled Sam. Of course she knew. There wasn't a way to get in, no ships or people to spare, no idea what they'd be walking into the middle of._

_Teal'c caught her eye. Sam saw the same expression in them she'd last seen while working to bring Jack home from the Maybourne's utopia. She broke eye contact._

_At least the last time, on his trip to Atlantis, she hadn't known he was in trouble until he was already safe._

_She took a deep breath and prayed he would get home soon. Her silent panic only deepened as the weeks stretched on. She couldn't lose him now._

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She watched him rigidly control every damn muscle in his body. He wasn't supposed to be out there! He was supposed to be safe in D.C.! Sam did know that nothing would keep Jack from going offworld. She couldn't expect him not to do his job. Just as he couldn't expect her to stay away from gate travel.

The price was too high. And yet, they both paid it.

"Jack…" She couldn't say what she wanted.

It would be selfish of her to try and coax him to talk just because she wanted to. She knew him. Too well.

He remained impassive and distant.

Dr. Lam chose that moment to come by. "He's ready to be taken home." She looked at Jack sternly, as he stared unemotionally at the wall. "No beer and no driving, General O'Neill. Colonel, I'll need you to stay with him constantly. I checked with Gen. Landry; you have two weeks leave."

Sam gave her a smile, one that bore more resemblence to a grimace. "Undomesticated equines, Doc."

Dr. Lam looked rather confused but nodded all the same.

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He sat on the porch staring into the dusky sky. His painful wounds were fading everywhere but the place that mattered most. Jack knew that Sam was struggling with a way to approach him. He hated that they were here. At an insurmountable impasse.

He loved her, loved her totally. He just couldn't help her with her demons while his own threatened to swallow him whole. It made him feel weak and guilty.

Just like the desperate self-recrimination he was plagued with over the whole damned mess of a mission.

She soothed him when he awoke, trembling, thrashing, sweating, yelling, remembering the bloody screams of those he couldn't save.

Sam was grounding him, but he couldn't tell her that. He could only turn inward and do the best he could.

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"_Colonel Denoble! Watch your six!" Jack yelled, motioning for the rest to fall back. Suddenly they were met at both ends of the hallway with phaser thingys (as Jack had dubbed them) pointed at them. They were all roughly shoved to the ground. Jack resisted only to earn a crack to his head with a trinium tipped boot._

_//Definitely F.U.B.A.R. //_

_He awoke two hours later, according to his watch. God, his head hurt. They were in a sterile room; Jack, Lt. Kelly, Maj. Dawkins, and Lt. Ehlert were chained to the walls. Col. Denoble was strapped to a table in the middle of the room._

_A tall heavily muscled man entered the room looking greedily at the four men and the woman restrained around the room. He rubbed his hands looking down at the Colonel._

_"Let's begin, shall we?"_

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Jack shivered almost imperceptively in the warm night air. Sam, watching from within the house, caught it. He was so withdrawn. She had been trying for the past two weeks to get her husband back. Sam knew she couldn't push him, or rush him. But she was struggling with her own overpowering emotions. She was damn scared.

He flinched from touch, wouldn't hold her in bed. He spoke in monosyllabic words and a monotone voice. Jack wasn't even grouchy when he went to get his wounds checked. A sure sign something was very wrong in Jackville.

He hadn't even been like this after his stint with Baal, four long years ago. That deeply scared her. //What the fucking hell happened to him that could possibly be worse than having your body hijacked from the inside out only to be tortured horribly and murdered endlessly//

She wondered if this had simply been the last straw. He had been through so much. Horror after horror after horror. A cycle of grief, loss, bloodshed, and heartbreak. She chased away the thought in disgust.

Jack O'Neill always bounced back with wit, levity, and humor.

The end.

Jack barely moved as she came out and sat next to him on the deck. She tentatively reached for his hand, careful not to jostle the bandaged wrist. She gently stroked a long since healed scar across his knuckles. He allowed her the comfort.

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_Denoble was dead, after six days of slowly being dissected. The others were in shock. Jack was disgusted, but presented a leadership façade to try and keep their hope alive. Truth was he was shaken by the inhuman brutality. Of course he'd seen the like before. But it never ceased to sicken him.They didn't want information or ransom; they wanted pain and fear._

_When he awoke the next time, Lt. Kelly was strapped next to the mutilated corpse. She looked disgusted and terrified, but was trying to remain calm and in control._

_Seven days later there were two corpses. _

_Jack was sick from the smell of death. His throat was raw from roaring in a helpless fury; his legs and arms rubbed to the bone and bleeding from straining against his bonds. At that point in time he was more animal than human._

_His subordinates, whom he was responsible for, had all been viciously slain. He didn't know how long he'd been here. He only knew he was as guilty as the executioner for not saving them from that horrifying demise._

_When they came to strap him to the table, he was ready. He lolled as if unconscious. They grabbed him, unshackling him. As he was being dragged he twisted lithely breaking one of their arms and smashing some of one's ribs. He managed to knock one unconscious and incapacitate the other. _

_He slipped from the room and slunk in the shadows until he could flee the city._

_The only thing that kept him human was flashes of Sam._

_-A huge burst of laughter over a stupid comment at dinner.-_

_-A playful wrestling match on the hallway floor.-_

_-A surprise visit to D.C.-_

_-A shared shower.-_

_-Her brilliant smile as he slipped a bent paper clip on her finger.-_

_-Her mock-haughty hair toss.-_

_-The ratty blue slippers he took pleasure in hiding from her at every opportunity.-_

_-The way her eyes lit up at a new challenge.-_

_-A gentle touch and whispered 'Sir...' as he bled furiously on the grass during a nameless mission, secure in her arms.-_

_-The way her nose wrinkled when she called him an ass.-_

_-The wild, loud, furious fights followed by takeout and stargazing wrapped around each other.-_

_-The aggravating trips back and forth between D.C. and the Springs, discomfort forgotten when their eyes met.-_

_-Her leaning into his comforting arm, slung around her shoulder, pressing her face to his hand, aching with the love he held close to his heart.-_

_-That last morning curled in bed together.-_

_-Making her laugh.-_

_-Her magnificent strength.-_

_-The feel of her wrapped in his arms.-_

_-Her tousled and drowsy appearance after a night of playful/passionate/wild/tender lovemaking.-_

_-The steadfast belief she had in him.-_

_He realized it was the small things with her that counted the most. It anchored his soul. The blackness threatening to overtake him held at bay by her smile, her love._

_She would be crushed if he were lost._

_He reached the gate and went home. To her. For her._

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Jack stirred and looked over slowly.

Sam held her breath.

"They were tortured. For days. I had to...watch."

She nodded sadly, but remained silent.

"No one should..." He stopped a second. "...Have to die like that." He was holding himself unnaturally still.

Sam minimally tightened her grip on Jack's hand.

"I was in command."

All of a sudden the pieces fell together. He could deal with things done to him. He could not handle watching it be done to those he felt responsible for, only to escape by himself later. At least with Baal he could just be angry at Baal and not with himself.

He felt as though he failed. He was beaten within an inch of his life, made to watch as those under his command were murdered atrociously helpless to protect and save them.

She blinked slowly. "If I know anything about you, Jack O'Neill, it's that if there were a way, you would have found it. If you couldn't do it, no one could have."

Jack sighed wearily. "I'm so tired."

Her head dropped. "I know."

"Sam."

She entwined her fingers with his. "Sir?"

His eyes slammed shut as the endearment washed over him like a balm. "Thank you."

She looked mildly puzzled as she caught his eye for the first time. There was a dim light that had been missing before. "For what?"

He gently squeezed her hand. "For you."

She gave him an affectionate smile. "Thank you for you too."

Jack cracked a glimmer of a smile.

She knew they'd be ok.

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_Two months later…_

Jack waved his arms about splashing everyone in range with a dose of Guinness.

"Come on!!! Burns as Goa'uld!!!!!!!"

Cameron Mitchell looked torn. "Ah, sorry Sir, I just don't get it." He wiped beer from his eyes.

Jack looked disgusted and began muttering to himself.

Hank Landry just stared at the splashes of liquid staining his favorite shirt, sighing heavily.

"Jack, don't you think that's enough beer?" Daniel was dabbing his sweater in the hopes of getting the alchoholic smell out.

"Danny, you have a lot to learn about life." Jack deliberately held Daniel's eyes opened another beer dumping it all over the meat. "Guinness is _the_ best secret ingredient. Ever."

Daniel turned to Sam. "It's good to have him back."

Sam smiled sadly. "Yes."

He regarded her a minute. "You okay?"

She looked at Jack a long moment. "We will be."

With that she went over to Jack and walked straight into his arms. He looked startled for a minute, then simply dropped the beer and the skewer where he stood, enfolding her like a starving man.

Daniel felt the knot of worry unravel.

Things might never be totally okay. But his friends had each other. They'd make it work.

He was startled out of his thoughts by two shocked yells and a loud splat. Cameron had tripped and accidentally launched a whole frickin' watermelon at the two.

Jack charged, snagging Teal'c's thermos of water as he passed. Jack tackled Cameron and squirted him shamelessly with the water while Sam stood to the side, sticky and yelling.

Vala then jumped in the fray and immediately jumped away again when she realized how cold the water was. She ran over and mercilessly wrapped herself around Daniel who let out a yelp of his own as she soaked his clothes along with hers. It went on until the five of them, minus Teal'c and Hank, stood panting, wet, sticky, and laughing on the grass.

Jack moved over to Sam and draping an arm over her pulled her tightly to him.

Yeah. It's the definitely the little things.


End file.
